James Caan Compares His Classic 'Thief' to 'Henry's Crime'

If "Henry's Crime" and "Point Break" were put back to back, James Caan has the Gary Busey role. As Max, he's the older mentor to Keanu Reeves, who provides not only guidance but also comedic relief, in this instance, as a con man convict who gets out of jail to help Reeves commit a bank robbery, rather than prevent one. Caan talks about the character motivations for "Henry's Crime," as well as one of its inspirations.

Q: Director Malcolm Venville says that he looked to your 1981 film "Thief" for inspiration for "Henry's Crime." What do you make of that?

A: Is he out of his mind? [Laughs] I don't mean to be rude, but how is that? "Thief" was not about a caper. It was not about a heist. "Thief" was much more character driven. It was more about the guy learning how to survive in prison by not caring about a living human. He was on his own. And everybody wants him to work for them, but he doesn't give a crap about anybody. It's hard to deal with anybody, because he doesn't care if he lives or dies. And in the second act, he falls in love, with Tuesday Weld, and he realizes he can't be that guy anymore. And in the third act, he has to get rid of his family and everything he owns. So this picture, listen, this is not a negative, it's a positive, actually, in that we're not setting out to cure cancer, but it's a sweet, little picture. See, my view of the picture is a little different than Malcolm's, although he's the director and that makes a difference, but I see this one as the struggle of a guy who belonged nowhere, did nothing, and it's more about the struggle than the caper. But the caper's kind of fun. I wish it was deeper than that, but it gets you lost for two hours, and you smile and laugh, and we don't have too many of those anymore.

Q: There was a lot more of your character in different versions of the script? Or in what you shot?

A: There was a lot more of Max being a con artist in jail, which was not kept in for whatever reason. So it's more that Henry meets this father figure in jail and they befriend each other. So he tries to get my character out of jail, who loves jail.

Q: What was Keanu like as a producer, since he was doing double duty on this project?

A: He was invisible, in the best way. As an actor, I'm not really working with the producers, so whatever he did as a producer, he never did it on the set, so he was graceful about it. We don't pay attention to producers unless we need more money or a better place to live [laughs], and he was really good about that.